“No?” Diego puts his hands on his hips.
Gracie’s pencil stops moving and she looks up at me. “You didn’t see them?” she asks.
“No,” I say.
“I thought you said you did see ’em?” Dibs demands.
“You either seen ’em or you didn’t, Mylo,” Spuds calls out. “Which is it?”
“I did see one,” I tell them. “But it wasn’t a body.”
“If it wasn’t a body, then what was it?” Diego demands.
I turn to face Gracie again. “A Martian,” I say, wondering if she’ll write that in her book.
But her pencil stays still.
No one says anything.
“And he was alive, too.”
Gracie starts scribbling furiously.
Spuds starts pacing in the dirt.
Diego starts to gag again.
Dibs just stares at me, still folded up on his knees in the dirt by my side.
No one says anything for a real long while, until Spuds finally stops pacing and turns to the group.
“I think we should all just go back home and leave it for the Army Air Force,” he says. “That’s it. We just…we just need to get out of here and…and….and leave it be. We seen it, like we said we wanted to, right? We seen it. Now we just need to go before something real bad happens.”
“Spuds is right,” Dibs says. “We need to just go back and cross our hearts that we tell nothing to no one about it. Mr. Lord said we shouldn’t come out here and he was right. We should have listened to him.”
“Yep,” Diego says. “I agree. We need to let the Army Air Force handle it. Come on, Gracie.” He puts his hand out to help her up out of the dirt.
She’s still writing.
“No,” I say.
Diego drops his hand. “What do you mean, no?” He furrows his brow, ready for a fight.
“I mean I’m not going back,” I tell him.
“Suit yourself, Affinito.” Diego shrugs. “But we’re leaving. Gracie?” He holds out his hand again.
She ignores him.
“What do you mean you’re not going back, Mylo?” Dibs demands. “You have to.”
I stand up then, take a long, deep breath, and brush the dirt from my overalls. My head feels heavy and dizzy, and the desert spins like another carnival ride until I find my feet under me.
“He needs my help,” I tell them. “And I need yours if I’m going to help him out of there.”
Spuds starts pacing again.
“What are you talking about?” Diego says.
I glance at Gracie, who’s finally stopped writing and is staring up at me. “Dibs was right,” I say. “I’m hearing something. Except it’s not exactly words. It’s like pictures…messages…on the backs of my eyelids.”
“On the backs of your what?” Diego says.
“It doesn’t matter. All I know is someone needs help. I don’t know how or why it’s me who knows about it, but it is…and…and so I’m helping whoever it is in that thing,” I say. “But I can’t do it alone. He thinks I can, but I know I can’t. I need you, too.”
“Well, I’m not going anywhere near there.” Spuds shakes his head. “Not if there’s some space monster inside that thing. Not on your life.”
“This is life or death.” I throw my hands up in the air. “They are living beings that need help. What does it matter if they don’t look like we do? Someone needs help…you help ’em. That’s how it works.”
“How many are there?” Gracie asks, chewing on her eraser.
I turn to look at her still sitting in the dirt. “I don’t know.”
She writes that in her book, too.
“Affinito, you’re off your rocker, you know that?” Diego says. “We are going home. You can stay and do whatever you want. Best of luck.” He turns toward Lupe.
“You don’t understand,” I say.
“I understand enough to know that you’re starting to sound too much like crazy old Mordecai Lord. Next you’ll be walking to the mailbox in nothing but a threadbare plaid bathrobe and eating attic bats, too,” he calls over his shoulder.
“I’ve got it!” Dibs exclaims, his pointer finger in the air. “I know what this is! It isn’t Martian mind control at all, and he ain’t Mordecai Lord crazy, either.” He stares wide-eyed at me. “It’s…telepathy.”
Spuds stops pacing and slaps a hand over his mouth. “Is it catching?” he mumbles behind his palm.
“It isn’t a sickness, it’s a power. A superpower. In Superman, issue number forty-five, ‘Lois Lane, Superwoman,’ he has telepathic powers. He can read people’s thoughts. Knows exactly what they’re thinking without no one even telling him.” Dibs gasps and puts a hand on my arm. “The card! It was real, Mylo! Like an actual sign that the universe has anointed you with superpowers…anyone could have gotten that Cracker Jack box. Absolutely anyone. But it wasn’t just anyone…it was you. And now, just like Superman, you’re possessed of powers and abilities never before realized on Earth.” He waves his arms.
Silence.
Dibs’s hand shoots high in the air then with so much force it almost pulls his toes clear off the ground. “I call your Jimmy Olsen!” he hollers.
Diego blows air out of his mouth and shakes his head. “Butte, of all the dumb things you’ve come up with, this is by far the dumbest,” he says. “Everyone knows Superman comes from a planet of supermen; he wasn’t anointed by the universe. And for sure not through a Cracker Jack box.”
Dibs ignores him. “Aquaman had it, too,” he says. “He could talk to the marine animals and know exactly what they were thinking. Mostly just fish…but I bet if he got visited he could talk to Martians, too—”
“Butts, shut your pie hole already!” Diego commands.
Dibs doesn’t hear that one, either. “That’s it, all right! That’s what he’s got!” He looks at me with amazement. “Cracker Jack telepathy.”
“I don’t get it,” Spuds says. “He caught it from Cracker Jacks?”
“Wait!” Dibs shouts. “Mylo, tell me what I’m thinking right this minute.” With his eyes closed, he massages his temples with his fingertips.
“Everyone just shut up for a minute!” Diego hollers with his arms straight out.
No one says anything.
“We’re leaving!” Diego shouts. “That’s it.”
“Dr. Psycho was a telepathic supervillain in Wonder Woman number five, ‘Battle for Womanhood,’ ” Dibs whispers to Gracie. “You might want to write that down in your little book there.” He points.
“If you’re going to write that, then make sure and put in there that Dibs doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” Diego says.
Dibs scowls good and ugly back at Diego. “Then you should put in there that Diego’s so bad up at bat, he couldn’t hit water if he fell out of a boat.”
Diego shows Dibs a fist.
Dibs pretends to shudder in fear.
And Gracie rolls her eyes at the whole thing.
“Do you think he needs a doctor?” she asks me.
Diego scoffs and kicks at the gravel with his boot.
“I don’t know,” I say. “But I have to find out.”
“Dr. Psycho used his telepathic powers to enter Wonder Woman’s dreams, too…just like with this,” Dibs says to no one in particular. “I’m just saying, same deal here.”
“You read Wonder Woman, Butte?” Spuds says under his breath. “Thaaaat’s pretty weird.”
“I’m going back to help and that’s all there is to it,” I tell them all. “No one has to come if they don’t want.”
“Let’s take a vote,” Diego says. “All in favor of getting out of here, raise your hand.” His hand shoots up first, followed by Spuds’s.
Dibs gives me a sly smile and slowly raises hi
s hand. “Sorry,” he says.
“Okay, Gracie,” Diego says. “Raise your hand.”
Her eyes meet mine.
“Gracie,” Diego says again.
She slowly tucks her tablet and pencil into her cloth purse. “No,” she says flatly.
Diego’s hand slips down slowly and his mouth falls open. “What do you mean, no?” he demands.
“I mean I’m not leaving,” she says. “Not if someone’s hurt and needs help.”
I swallow hard. “Are you sure?” I ask her.
She gazes in the direction of the disk. “Yes.” She bobs her head once, like she really means it.
“I don’t believe this.” Diego runs a hand through his hair.
“Hey.” Spuds stretches his neck, pointing in the distance. “What’s that?” he asks.
We all turn to see a tornado of dust billowing straight up to the sky off in the distance.
I shield my eyes with my hand.
“A dust devil?” Dibs says.
“It’s a haboob coming this way, maybe,” Spuds says.
“We better get out of here before that dust storm hits. I don’t plan to be buried under a wall of sand with that Martian thing,” Diego says.
Another gust billows through, clearing just enough of the dust and dirt and gravel and silt kicked up into the sky for us to see as plain as day.
“They’re coming!” Dibs hollers.
July 7, 1947—2:40 p.m.
A human chain of hands.
First me and then Gracie, Dibs, Spuds, and even Diego work together to climb up the side of a large arroyo way south of the crash site. I can’t say for sure we weren’t seen at all, but at least no one came after us when we saddled up and made our way out of there.
Once we all make it to the top of the rock, we army-crawl on our bellies across the flat surface to the very edge.
A covert parade of belly walkers.
One by one, we line up still against the rock and watch as the Army Air Force vehicles surround the crash site down below in one big roaring, red tornado of dust. I count fourteen vehicles altogether.
Seven jeeps.
Two flatbeds.
Five covered pickup trucks with tan-colored tarps over the beds.
“What do they need with two flatbeds?” Dibs whispers.
“Think they’ll take the ship back with them?” I ask.
“It’s round,” Spuds says. “It’s going to roll right off that thing.”
We watch as men climb out of their vehicles in their 509th Bomb Group Army Air Force tan uniforms and scramble around in every direction, just like the cockroaches do in Dibs’s kitchen sink when you turn the lights on.
The first group takes point all around the disk, their large guns drawn and ready for a hostile interstellar battle.
Another group works to set up camp, unloading trucks to the tune of harsh voices bellowing orders.
Tables are set up under a tent to the right.
Long black bags are laid out in the dirt on the left.
Another group of four soldiers pull bulky white suits with hoods over their uniforms.
Dibs pokes me and raises his eyebrows. “If they read the Planet Comics series, they’d know all they really need is the tinfoil squares on their heads.”
A larger group forms a human chain, scouring the desert and picking up every single piece of debris. Even the ones still stuck in the high tree branches.
Another truck stops, and we watch four men exit the vehicle one by one, three of them wearing olive-green jackets over tan uniforms even though it’s a million degrees out. Their medals and ribbons pierce their fronts and sparkle in the sun. And then we see one regular man who’s not wearing a uniform. Instead he’s in coveralls with dirt on the knees.
“Who’s that?” Diego points. “That man there, out of uniform.”
“Looks like a rancher,” Spuds says.
“It’s probably Mac Brazel,” I say.
“Nah.” Dibs squints. “Too skinny to be Mac Brazel. Maybe Mac Brazel called the Foster brothers in Texas about the crash and they came out to see it for their own selves. Maybe it’s Jap or Henry.”
We watch the men in the olive jackets as they huddle in their circle. But when they all fall into a line, looking straight out at the disk, we get a better look at them.
It’s Dibs who gasps first.
“Do you see who it is?” He grabs my arm. “Do you?”
I stare, unable to speak.
And that’s when we see the men in the white hoods lower a small body out of the bottom of the chamber.
“Look!” Gracie points.
A small gray body with coal-black eyes and limp gray arms hanging toward the ground.
“No,” Dibs says under his breath.
My bones ache so deeply, I can feel the pain clear to my toes.
Dibs sits up and looks at me. “I think we need to pray for them,” he says. “Right now, come on.” He gets up and holds out his hands.
We all stand in a circle with clutched hands and bowed heads.
Even me.
“I’ll start,” Dibs says. “Lord God, please help these Martians. I know there’s one still alive in there, God. Please watch over him and make sure he gets home.” He clears his throat. “Where he belongs.”
Then Gracie. “They’re probably real scared to be here on a planet where they don’t know anyone and don’t know the language,” she says. “Give them peace in their hearts to know there are people here who want to help them.”
Diego clears his throat and shifts his feet. “I don’t know what to say,” he tells his boots.
“Just say what you feel,” Gracie tells him.
He nods. “They have family,” he starts, his voice low and gravelly. “And friends who want them home. Please see to it that someone helps them get there.”
Then I see him glance at me.
I look away.
“Spuds,” Dibs says. “Your turn.”
“Oh, um, God? I don’t know if this is your territory, but there are some creatures over that way that don’t look like they’re doing so good. I think even if it isn’t your job to watch over them, you’d do it, you know, ’cause you’re God and all.”
And then it’s my turn.
The others stay silent, eyes closed, waiting on me.
But I don’t know what to say to Him.
“Mylo?” Gracie finally says. “Do you want to add anything?”
I nod.
“I made a promise,” I whisper. “Please let me keep it this time.”
“Amen.” Dibs says it first.
Everyone follows.
Even me.
We stay in our circle, hands still clasped, gazing back and forth at each other.
Unsure what to do next.
“We need to make a pact,” Diego finally says. “No one says anything about us being out here today.” He points to each one of us, his eyes stopping on me.
I nod.
“Everyone put a hand in,” he says, holding a flat palm out in the center of our Martian prayer circle.
Spuds puts his hand over Diego’s, then Dibs, then Gracie, and then me.
We stand in our circle of secrecy. Sweaty palms stuck together tight in a slippery hand-sandwich pact. Our eyes locking on each other in a silent understanding of the importance of what we’ve seen.
What it means for them.
What it means for us.
And for the entire universe, too.
“Gracie,” Dibs whispers in her direction. “Did you put that part in your book about Diego not being able to get a hit?”
But Diego isn’t even listening.
His eyes are glued to mine.
“Affinito,” he says. “What in the Sam H
ill is your daddy doing out there with the Army Air Force?”
July 7, 1947—4:15 p.m.
At the black mailbox, Dibs and I sit quietly for a long while, him on True Belle and me on Pitch, thinking about it all.
“You don’t hear him no more, do you?” Dibs finally says.
I shake my head.
“Was that the one?” he asks. “The one they pulled out of the ship? Was he the one you seen in there?”
I don’t say anything.
“He wasn’t moving…do you think it was…he was—” he starts, and then stops.
He doesn’t ask me the question that he doesn’t want an answer to.
A question I don’t want to answer.
I swallow back the rush of tears in my throat and wipe at the ones pushing their way to the rims of my eyes.
“Mylo?” Dibs whispers, studying me, his Martian mind-control-prevention tinfoil square still molded tight against his head underneath his Yankees cap. “You crying?”
I shake my head, but the tears squeezing out between my lashes make me a liar.
I swat them away with an angry hand.
“I promised him,” I say, my voice squeaking and cracking on each word. “I promised him.”
Dibs stands there staring at me without saying anything.
I push more tears off my face, but they’re coming down like hard rain. And with that kind of mess going on, there is just no putting on a brave face. So I just stand there crying like a big baby right in front of him.
“And you want to know what else?” I wipe my nose again.
He nods.
“The most important thing I have of Obie’s is gone now, too. The one that means everything.”
“You have a lot of things of his still,” Dibs says.
“Nothing that smells like him anymore. Shortstop smells just like him. He was the only connection I had left.”
I scoff and snot shoots from my nose. “Some kind of superhero, huh?” I say.
Dibs doesn’t answer at first. Then he says, “I think it’d be okay if Superman cried. Shows he’s part human, too. Superheroes have to have a human heart or they wouldn’t care enough to help those who need it.”
“He isn’t part human,” I say. “He’s from Krypton, a planet of supermen and superwomen.”
The Truth About Martians Page 11
